Your King apologizes sincerely for the delay of this post. (I had to dive deeper than I first anticipated.) In part one we went over the story of Pneumonia White. In this continuation we will be performing a full synopsis of the mysteries in her blog. It took a very long time to piece together a coherent timeline, but hopefully we can finally put the last nail in this proverbial coffin. Spoiler alert: we solved the final puzzle. Enjoy.
CHAPTER ONE: WHO IS PNEUMONIA WHITE?
CHAPTER TWO: MIRIAM KONIG VS. PNEUMONIA
WHITE
When I discovered the original identity of Pneumonia White, I was forced to ask myself a question that many have pondered in reaction to both her and the other debutantes: "What is real?"
The reason this must be asked is because these bloggers seem to use a mélange of truth and fiction in their writing with very little delineation between the two. This begs the question: "Who is real? Pneumonia White or Miri? Or both? Or neither?" While I was unable to decipher which character (if either) is real, I thought it sensible to contrast the two characters to see how great the discrepancies are.
1. Miri is from Germany, while Anya is from Russia
2. Though both refer to their grandmas the same way, Miri spells it "grannie" while Anya spells it "granny"
3. Miri alluded to her mum being a psychologist, and Anya said her mum makes costumes for movies
4. Miri lived at her Grannie's old place in Silverlake, while Anya lived in her late-granny's mansion in Bel Air
5. Miri had been in LA at least since 2009, but Anya claimed to have arrived in LA on July 8'th 2011 for the first time in nearly five years.
Comparing these two characters is complicated but for the sake of creating a timeline of events, I decided to treat the story as if both character's stories are true. It is with that premise that I can present to you the next chapter.
CHAPTER THREE: THE TIMELINE
(I apologize in advance for this convoluted timeline. I included as many noteworthy events as I could find with little rhyme or reason as to what made the cut. At this point, it seems like everything could be important.) Here is the timeline as best I could decipher based on both Miri and Anya's stories:
{Miri (Anya/Pneumonia White) is born in Siberi, Karelia in Russia (1991)
{Miri and her family travel the world (because her mother makes costumes for movies) and spend a lot of time in Berlin, Germany
{Miri's family decides to cease travelling and move into granny's* [*likely her father's mother] old mansion in Silverlake (2000)
{White's brother Viktor drowns (2001) [White is 10]
{White's father dies (2001-2002) [White is 10]
{White meets her first love , Evan (2003) [White is 13]
{Miri begins writing California Noir (September 2009) [White is 19]
{Miri creates a Facebook page for California Noir (December 2009)
{Miri moves in with Belle Armed (February 2011)
{Pneumonia Black begins her blog (February 2011)
{Miri transitions California Noir into Pneumonia White (March 8'th 2011)
{Miri scraps the California Noir posts, rebrands Noir as a new blog: 'Holliday'.
{Pneumonia White begins posting while sharing a joint Blogger profile with Pneumonia Black (June 2011)
{Pneumonia Black stops posting (July 2011)
{Pneumonia White deletes all (two) June posts (July 2011)
{Pneumonia White begins posting and marks the beginning of her character's story (July 5'th 2011)
{White moves in to granny's old mansion in Bel Air, which she believes she inherited (July 9'th 2011)
{White references California Noir by leading with the phrase 'Woke up at 11', a nod to California Noir's banner text (July 11'th 2011)
{A boy named Joel is the first to publically drop White's name: 'Anya' (July 12'th 2011)
{Black moves in with White (July 13'th 2011)
{Black leaves temporarily to visit her family. White thinks she's hiding something (July 21'st 2011)
{Black and White find the mysterious (and likely metaphorical) golden key (July 28'th 2011)
{Black disappears, claiming to have left for a "walkabout" (August 2'nd 2011)
{White begins to gain attention and has been requested for interviews by various media outlets (August 4'th 2011)
{White changes the blog's banner (August 10'th 2011)
{White leaves and posts a goodbye message stating that she cannot talk about granny's funeral for legal reasons (September 22'nd 2011)
{White resurrects PneumoniaWhite.com and publishes a post exactly three years after leaving (September 22'nd 2014)
{White deletes PneumoniaWhite.com again, along with all three posts from 2014. (Somewhere between January and May 2015)
CHAPTER FOUR: RED HERRINGS
I was led down several paths that my grandfather would refer to as, "frivolous pursuits for untamed water-fowl" (i.e. wild goose-chases). It took me many moons to separate truth from fiction, so here are some conclusions that proved inaccurate.
{"Miri is not Pneumonia White, but instead Pneumonia Black." The only visuals I have of Miri from the pre-Pneumonia days show her as being a brunette, much like Pneumonia Black, opposed to being a blonde like Pneumonia White. However, it is quite easy to dye one's hair, and all the timeline evidence from Facebook points to Miri being Pneumonia White.
{"Cassidy Cole (the Silverlake Serpent / Hollywood Sign Girl) is Pneumonia White." In Miri's last post on California Noir, she posts a picture of Cassidy and tells of her crush on her. (Thus making the dynamic similar to White & Black's.) Also, Cassidy is a blonde, which fits in to the previously stated theory. Moreover, Cassidy commented on a post and linked Pneumonia White [PW] as if it was her own blog. (Linking your blog at the end of your comments was customary in those days.) However, this is where the trail of evidence linking Cassidy and White end. Also, under her Hollywood Sign Girl [HSG] alias, she commented this on one of White's posts:
[HSG]: "Anya, I have a small house party down venice with some friends tomorrow. Tried to text you on facebook, but check it and please get back to me, because all my friends are talking about you, and I am the most anxient to meet you! (I can promise you - you'll not be disappointed :) lots of kisses from your mortal friends ***"
[PW]: "hsg, i'll try to make it!!! i wanna meet you too. you seem so nice. XXX"
Unless they were clever enough to go that far to put off suspicion, (which I doubt), it directly implies that they had never met in person yet and were simply internet interests.
{"Belle is one of the Pneumonias." Belle Armed was living with Miri around the time California Noir ended, so I considered the possibility that perhaps she helped contribute to the narrative as Miri's other half. However, Belle looks far too different from either of them and there is no evidence to support the claim.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE FINAL CIPHER
There were many difficulties in solving the final cipher. I had assumed that the solution would be something that was clued at in the narrative. Perhaps the password was 'Barbosa', a password that they created for their exclusive 7-Eleven. However, that did not pan out.
In some of the ciphers that were given public solutions, the passwords were things like 'golden' and 'evan', both references to thematic elements in the story. (One was the color of Black's secret key, the other was White's first love.) I honed in on the key aspect since Black's key was alluded to in many posts, especially near the end of the story. It started as a key that White stole, which she promptly gave to Black. The key was also supposed to be of great importance to granny's funeral. And White did not realize what it unlocked before having an epiphany in front of the Hollywood sign. However, nothing related to it appeared to be the password.
Also in association with the golden key, White referenced a Grey bird. White had a repeating theme of birds in the various imagery and poetry she used throughout the blog. She showed pictures of Quail, she mentions Pigeons, and she used images of Black Swans as an icon. Unfortunately, none of these were the solution to the final puzzle.
After trying for weeks to crack the cipher using the blog as my guide and finding nothing, I began trying to crack it using the source code. I managed to figure out that, whatever the message is, it was likely a very concise message. My progress ended there, and I turned to my last hope; a large kingdom far away called Reddit.
I had heard stories of the wizards and scholars that resided on Reddit, so I packed my bags and made haste to the large city and it's simple, yet humungous towers. Eventually I found the help of a very kind warlock who knew how to write mystical programs that would crack enciphered text. His name was u/jtm297 and he was a mind ahead of his time. After pleading my case in the Court of Mystics for roughly a week, he came to my aid and said simply this: "Solved. The password is Tomas. Have a nice day."
Tomas. And with that, the final mystery was solved. I finally input the long-awaited password and held my breath as the message was revealed. The message read simply, "I don't wanna sleep!". Needless to say, I found this quite anticlimactic. But it did leave me with some new questions. "Who was Tomas?" "Is he a character we are already acquainted with (like Mr. Mysterious)?" "If not, what is his relevance to the story? And why was he never mentioned?"
It seems like Anya still got the last laugh. We were the first to solve her cipher in 8 years and we are still left with more questions than we started with.
EPILOGUE: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
If you have stuck through and read the entire post, then I'm sure we are wondering the same thing right now: "What does it all mean?" To give you the short answer, I'm not exactly sure. To give you the longer answer, it could mean many things.
Anya's tale tells of the secret undergrounds that inhabit our world. She speaks frequently of the 'Secret Hollywood' and how it killed her brother & father and ended her blog. For instance, her blog's first banner read:
"I was 10 when he died. Now, a Bel Air orphan, with a hundred pairs of shoes I have only one desire left: To tell U of the secret Hollywood that killed them."
In response to people asking about her identity, she had this to say:
"Who AM I. Who IS Pneumonia White? People seem obsessed 2 know. Following me, Hacking my mail, lurking in the shade outside my morning cafés. But I'm sorry stalkers. As much as I hate the cage wherein I live, I won't let U liberate me.
U c the Hollywood I live in is different. It's not the famous, opulent, dramatic Hollywood of the stars, but the very opposite.
I live in the SECRET Hollowood. The one hidden deep inside the lush gated communities of Old Bel Air. The damp streets where you won't find any residential sidewalks. It is a Hollywood where a year at Marymouth High means more than any Academy Award. It's the Hollywood that don't shout, but whisper. But whose whispers gets movies gets done, worlds built, and others destroyed.
And if the price 2 stay here is secrecy, I pay the price and hide myself in veils of words, and this is all U get:
'My name is Pneumonia White and I've been blogging since I arrived here in LA the 6th of july 2011. I live (almost) alone in the house my grandmother left me in Bel Air. My goal is to fill the hole in my heart with so many Alaïa dresses and Alexander Wang shoes that I never will cry again. If I could have one superhero power it would b being able to never wake up again'"
And in her 'final' post where she closes the book on her story, she writes this:
"I love u
Loved ones. I think u have seen it coming. By the time your read this my life on this blog will be over.
There are many reasons. Most of them just hinted in the vague threats by my lawyer. I tell u, there are MANY things my part of Hollowood don't want the world to know. (And there's no shortage of lawyers here either). And as much as I don't WANT 2 care about those things, I do. I'm spoiled and afraid, and ever since Black disappeared, I'm also lonely.
Also, this blog has grown to big for me. Every DAY I get mails from around the world telling me what a rich bitch I am. And even WORSE: Everyday I get mails telling me how beautiful I am. How people look up to me. But I am NO Role Model. I'm an anxiety ridden wreck that runs on fantasies and self-loathing.
(There are also other things, weird dreams that started to come alive with this blog, and that I hope will die with it)
All this aside, YOU have changed my life for the better, and THAT I can never repay. If I EVER get my life back, I'll b back, right here, with U, the only place I felt safe, in a long time.
Love and blessings
Pneumonia "
She never revealed the secrets of the Hollywood underground. And she never gave any clues about the proceedings of granny's funeral. She left us one final cipher, but what she left us with was not enough to infer the details that she was forced to expunge. We can only speculate as to what went on beyond the veil of the Pneumonia White blog; was it meant as a work of fiction? Or perhaps a new form of meta-art? Or was it just the ramblings of a madwoman? None can know for sure, but I am at least honored to present to you the most interesting blog I have ever found. Thank you all for sticking by me and tolerating my talk of conspiracies and intrigue. You keep me going. Until next time.
Long live the King
Quite an intriguing piece my prince! Hopefully, you'll write more often.
ReplyDeleteIts nice to have come across your blog! :) Looking forward to reading the next piece!
Many thanks, highness! This post was the culmination of almost an entire year of research and was my crowning achievement. As you can imagine, it left me somewhat winded; But I do plan to post more, all the same! And I look forward to reading your next journey as well!
DeleteRegards,
The Lost Prince
P.S. I love your new Blog theme. You've gone through many aesthetics over the years, and I'm always impressed with them.